


The Mechanic

by apocalypse_suite



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Angst, Blowjobs, Bondage, Choking, Cock Warming, Din Djarin is a switch, Din Djarin's Helmet Stays on During Sex, Dom/sub, Dry Humping, F/M, Face-Fucking, Finger Sucking, Found Family, Gambling, Grinding, Hand & Finger Kink, Masturbation, Mentions of Slavery, Oral Sex, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn with Feelings, Possessive Sex, Smut, Spanking, Touch-Starved Din Djarin, Vaginal Fingering, it grew a plot, thigh riding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:40:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27823153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apocalypse_suite/pseuds/apocalypse_suite
Summary: The two of them co-parenting a tiny magical being, crammed together in that small ship? Who could blame them for getting antsy?This was supposed to be pwp but it grew a plot anyway and now yall get to enjoy it so have fun.
Relationships: Din Djarin & Reader, Din Djarin/Original Female Character(s), Din Djarin/Reader
Comments: 59
Kudos: 284





	1. It's the Scarring

The first few weeks Lis was aboard the Crest she was terrified of Mando, assuming he planned on dropping her off on the nearest backwater planet as soon as she had fixed the wiring that looked like it had been chewed through by some sort of small rodent. Thankfully, that ended up not being the case, and after a good part of a cycle she felt like they had slipped into a regular enough routine that she felt comfortable being her usual loud-mouthed obnoxious self.

It was Peli Motto, her old boss, that had got her the job. Lis had a feeling she hadn’t been sold on account of her soldering abilities (“I also fix droids too, not just ships. So if you have any around that need-” “No droids.”). Upon boarding the Razor Crest for the first time, Mando had pushed a small body into her arms with a quick “here”. Lis had found herself eye to eye with a small green creature she had never seen before, cooing and grabbing at her braid with an impossibly small hand.

“Oh good, he likes you.” Mando had said, half distracted with the takeoff sequence, “Don’t let him press anything he shouldn’t.” When Lis had next contacted Peli to chew her ear off about not being a qualified babysitter, Peli had shut her down, asking her if she expected that child to go out on bounty hunts with the Mandalorian that was now his sole caregiver. That did shut her up. But she would at least have liked a little warning beforehand.

The kid had grown on her, it was hard not to find everything he did infuriatingly adorable. He liked to hand her random pieces of scrap metal as she worked, and each time she would thank him and be unable to bear to throw it away. Before long her pockets seemed to be constantly laden with miscellaneous screws and washers, and Lis couldn’t bring herself to empty them, each one feeling like a tiny moment she had shared with the strange green creature.

So her job description had started out as an ongoing engineer, but Lis was starting to feel like her job was more of a glorified babysitter. The days she was there had started to blend together. She played with the kid, made them both food, did any ongoing maintenance that was required, said hi to Mando as he brought in a quarry, and occasionally she would whoop his ass in sabacc, rinse, repeat. Nothing really happened those first few months. And that was probably the problem.

See, Lis wasn't the kind of person who made a habit of denying her feelings. She had gone long enough under someone else's thumb being told who to want and when to want them, that now she did who she wanted when she wanted. The only issue was that on Tatooine she had had a steady flow of...she supposed she would call them quarries to be polite, that had come through. There were enough traders, bounty hunters, spice runners and passing pilots to keep her attention somewhere else for a night or two. Or afternoon. Or morning. Or three days on a round trip off world, much to Peli’s annoyance. But now it was just her and Mando hurtling through hyperspace, and wasn’t she painfully aware of it. Fucking Mando, if he didn't help the situation. It was almost like he knew exactly what he was doing to her.

At first it had been the way he moved around the ship that had caught her off guard. The assuredness, the confidence that he had made her knees weak. Lis bet if she turned off all the lights and blinded him he could still find his way around no bother.

Next was the way he spoke to her, at first he had been gruff, only gracing her with one word replies and saying the bare minimum, but after a short amount of time he was actually talking to her rather than at her. He wasn’t one to initiate conversations, but he would respond when she asked him things, and soon began to ask her things in return. Plus, she still wasn’t going to ease up on the good-natured insults.

It started just about the ship, and how she was looking repairs-wise. Then it was about the kid and how he was settling in, what foods he seemed to like, where to get it, what toys...granted they spoke mostly about the kid. 

She wondered if he had realised he had been lonely before the kid came along. And now she was here he actually had someone to converse with, and the chat was less one sided than it had been. Lis realised he loved to talk about the Mandalorian religion and culture, it was clearly something he could go on about for hours. And if she was honest, she would let him if he didn't keep catching himself, apologising that he was probably boring her.

Lis tried to keep the lovey-dovey tone out her voice when she told him it was fine, that she enjoyed hearing about it. 

What really did it was the way he would sometimes handle her. She had told him it was fine, that it didn’t bother her. It was usually when neither of them were paying attention, distracted by something or other, and in each other's way. He would take her by the shoulders and push her to the side, or touch her lower back when he was passing behind her in the narrow hallway behind the cockpit, or grab her for support on the occasion he came back from a job injured and in pain, insisting he just needed some bacta and some rest and would be fine. Every time he did Lis got to enjoy a few split seconds of contact before he was ripping his hand away as quickly as he had put it there, almost like she had burned him.

Was she that repulsive? Could he really not bear to touch her? She was so sure she wasn't misreading any signals, even with that damn mask in the way. She had definitely caught him looking at her a few times, the mask pointed in her direction and snapping away when she looked. The movement of someone caught staring was always the same, no matter how fast they reacted and it always made what they had been doing so much more obvious. 

The one time he didn't look away, the time that was drilled into Lis' fucking brain and probably would be for the rest of her life, was when she was fixing some overhead wiring in the cockpit trying to balance precariously on the spinning chair that the kid usually sat his tiny ass on. Thankfully, the gremlin in question was currently napping in the cargo hold, the hum of the engine lulling him to sleep better than any soft twinkling tune could.

"That never happened before you started messing around with things," Mando said at the sparking of wires, a hint of teasing she had come to recognise present in his voice. 

Lis hissed, nursing her burned fingertips. “It’s because this fucking chair keeps spinning," she said, trying to spin herself with one hand on the walls and failing miserably, "I can’t keep a decent angle to work on it.”

“If you needed help, that’s all you had to say,” Mando tutted, flicking a few switches to turn on the auto-nav and standing to help her.

He placed two hands either side of the chair’s arms, essentially boxing her in. Lis hoped her flush was hidden from view as she leaned one knee on the headrest, finally stable enough to work. A while back she had switched out her jumpsuit for a less greasy looking outfit, and despite the simplicity of her thick trousers and fitted top it was definitely a lot more flattering than the jumpsuit had been. Mando seemed to think so too. She felt the weight of his stare on the expanse of thigh and ass that was currently perfectly level with his visor, and tried not to shift herself too much under it.

“Nah, I know you love to watch me struggle.” Stars. She hadn't meant it to come out like that, breathy and wrecked, but the heavy silence that followed rang in her ears. It was supposed to be a joke, but either her tone or the position they were in meant it didn’t land at all. She glanced down as subtly as she could and saw his knuckles gripping the edges of the seat so tightly she swore it was about to tear. Lis decided to push her luck. “Am I wrong?”

“I-...” his voice was strained as he trailed off. She heard a deep breath rattle through the modulator. “I don’t-...Maybe.”

She made a small ‘hm’ noise in response. She was never wrong about these sorts of things. “That wasn’t so hard, now was it? I know you might feel a little weird about things, what with the kid and-”

“No,” he quickly said, “It’s not that. It’s just...are you sure?”

Lis almost laughed out loud, “Am I sure?”

She felt his gloved hand brush against her calf; feather light and delicate. 

“Lissa,” his voice was so quiet she was surprised the modulator had even picked it up in the first place. The use of her full name caused her to tense, and she knew he could feel it under his fingers. There was something dark in his tone, an undercurrent that made her shiver. “If we start this, I-I need to know you’re sure about what you’re asking for.”

She was pretty fucking sure. His hand wholly rested on her leg now, still gentle and light, but more certain than it had been before. As his thumb caressed the dip behind her knee the wire strippers slipped out her hand, clanging to the floor with a metallic clang that seemed to echo through the entire ship.

“Shit,” hissed Lis, as she and Mando both froze as if staying extra quiet now would undo the damage that had just been done. Sure enough, a small fussing cry came from below. Lis sighed. “Fuck, I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright,” Mando said, the tension well and truly broken now. “I can go, you can stay and finish here.”

“Nah,” Lis tucked the wires back up into the cubby in the ceiling and turned, extending her hand, “I’m finished anyway. Help me down?”

Instead of offering her his arm like she expected him to do, he wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her off the chair like she weighed less than nothing. Lis squeaked, grabbing his broad shoulders for support. Rather than placing her on the ground as she had again expected, he turned, still carrying her. He then loosened his grip a fraction so she was dragged against his armour in her descent, keeping his arm around her even as her feet touched the ground.

She swallowed, suddenly it was hard to breathe. She was pressed up against him, held in place by his forearm, the vambrace on his wrist biting into her back muscles even through her clothes. She was glad it was there, her legs surely wouldn’t support her if she tried to stand in her current state. His free hand moved, sliding over her waist to grip her hip and press his thumb into the exposed strip of skin slightly above it where her shirt had ridden up. Lis felt like her whole body was on fire.

“Mando, th-the kid,” she choked out, reminding him of a slightly more pressing matter. 

“Hurry back,” he said. Maker, she could feel the words rumbling in his chest under her fingertips as he spoke them, so much more real than the hollow output from behind the helmet. She knew that she would now be reminded of that feeling whenever he said anything to her, that baritone that cut her straight to the core.

She quickly nodded and he loosened his arm, fully setting her down. The hand on her hip tightened for a moment, then he was gone, leaving an empty feeling in his wake. She stood, trembling. His voice made her jump. “I said hurry back.”

Lis didn’t waste any time, taking the ladder steps two at a time. All her flurried activity calmed, however when she caught sight of the small child, sleepily sitting up in his bassinet.

“Hey, little guy,” she said softly, approaching him. He let out a little wail, rubbing his big eyes with a tiny fist. “I’m sorry, I know. I just dropped something upstairs.”

As softly as possible, she lifted him out the pod, rocking him against her chest. She hoped his massive ears didn’t pick up her pounding, nervous heartbeat. Lis had a theory that the baby was aware of more than he let on, and he could tell what everyone on board was feeling. When she was trying to get him down for a nap she had started calming herself too, projecting what she hoped was an aura of serenity and peace as she held him. Either way, it seemed to be working, and he was back to sleep before she had even had a chance to walk a lap of the hold. 

She smiled affectionately, running her fingers over his pointed ear before placing him back in the carrier and pushing the button to close the top.

Now, back to what had caused her to drop the tool in the first place. One hand on the ladder, Lis took a second to breathe, calming herself like she had done with the child only seconds before. 

Were they really about to do this? The child certainly complicated things a whole lot. What if this ended up going sour? Who would look after him? Probably Mando, but could she bear to never see the little green guy ever again?

She shook her head, chasing away the spiralling thoughts with a quiet laugh. Of course, that wouldn’t happen. There was no reason for it to. She and Mando were both adults. The way he had told her to hurry back flashed through her mind and her stomach flipped. Refusing to let her anxiety get the better of her, Lis determinedly made her way up the ladder, with each rung becoming more sure of her decision.

All her confidence evaporated when she reached the door of the cockpit and it hissed open. Mando was where she had left him, still standing next to the chair. Had he even moved at all?  Neither of them spoke as she took the step towards him, passing the metaphorical boundary that couldn't be undone now even if either of them wanted.

“We have to be quiet,” she said, her own voice sounding strange to her ears. He wordlessly nodded. Their chests were almost touching now and she noticed his hands twitch by his side.

Slowly, as if he was a wild animal she was trying not to spook, she took his right hand in her own. Even though she had been pressed up against him moments ago, this felt so much more...intimate. 

The leather was rough against her fingertips, and she could feel his pulse as she wrapped her fingers around his wrist, pushing the fabric of his shirt sleeve up slightly to expose the small sliver of skin there. Lis ran her thumb over it, not daring to push too hard, just enough to feel every dip and crease of what little she could see of him.  He let out a rattling breath, almost like he had been holding it, the first noise either of them had made since she had spoken.

“I asked you if you were sure,” he said in a low voice. Her eyes flicked to the visor of his helmet. “Because once this starts, I don’t think I’ll be able to stop.”

Lis dragged her fingers over his palm, then slowly pulled off each finger of the glove until she could slide it off. Her pace was agonising, but she felt like if she went any faster she might somehow break the spell that had been cast between them.

His fingers were just like the rest of him, sturdy and sure. Marred by the occasional scar or callous that just served to make him all the more distinctive.

“Good,” she replied simply, then brought his hand up to her jaw, pressing an open mouthed kiss to his palm. That seemed to snap him out of his daze, because as soon as she made contact he moved closer, his armoured frame crowding her against the back wall. Her hands were still on his wrist, but she was no longer guiding him. Instead he brought his hand up to roughly grab her jaw, tilting her head back slightly.

She could see his chest heaving, the stars going past streaking against the shiny surface of the beskar as he did so.

“Now the other one,” he held out his other hand expectantly, his strong fingers still holding her in place. She did as she was told, tugging the leather off and letting it drop to the ground. For some reason seeing his hands bare when usually he was covered head to toe in armour was almost as good as being completely naked. Lis felt like if she was to see any more her brain would probably short circuit. "Good girl."

Yeah, that would do it too.

Instead of replying with actual words Lis moved head to the left, catching his thumb between her lips. Mando let out a groan, showing her he wasn't as unaffected as he would like her to believe in that moment. She grazed her teeth over the pad and he pressed further into her mouth, stroking it against her tongue in a motion that was almost like he was fucking her with it. His other hand found its way to her side, digging into the soft skin beside her hip bone. Lis stared up at him with wide eyes, then hollowed her cheeks, sucking on his thumb. 

He let out another groan, deep and dangerous. "Cyar'ika," he mumbled, pulling his thumb out and painting across her lips with her own spit, feeling the soft wetness compared to his rough dry hands. He pressed his thigh between her legs, forcing her to spread them. Lis let out a gasp at the contact, but her gasp melted into a moan as his fingers slipped past her waistband into her underwear. Stars, why didn’t she do this sooner?

"Quiet," he hissed, moving his hand from her jaw to her neck, not quite tightening his grip yet, just holding her in place with it as warning. She let out a small gasp again as his finger brushed against her clit, circling it.

"Fuck, Mando," she choked, then whimpered as his grip on her throat abruptly tightened. 

"Are you getting wet from this?" He said, his voice almost a possessive growl as he teased her opening with his fingers, barely slipping them inside before dipping out back to her clit. "Shit, you are." He chuckled and her cheeks flamed, gritting her teeth against the pressure. "You like that I can do a-anything I want."

For someone who said very little, man, was he chatty now.

“Fuck,” he slipped two of his fingers into her, curling them as she keened. “Fuck, you’re so tight with j-just my fingers. Can’t imagine what you’d feel like around m-my cock.”

She tried not to smile at his stammer, giving away just how wrecked he also was. “You liar,” she said hoarsely, slightly strained against his grip. She knew she realistically should be worried, he had no doubt killed people with that exact same hand in the same way, but she knew that deep down she was safe. “I’ve seen you watching me. I know you think about me when you’re alone in your bunk.”

Her cockiness was short-lived when he abruptly slammed his hips into hers with a grunt, removing his fingers as he did so and pressing his covered face into the junction of her neck. She wished more than ever in that moment that he didn’t have that fucking mask on, that it was his mouth pressing against her burning skin rather than cold beskar. He dragged his hand from her neck, trailing down her sternum to palm at her chest, roughly gripping her to the point where she was sure she would have bruises in the shape of his fingers tomorrow.

The thought made her shift her hips forward, grinding against him to get as much stimulation as she could from the standing angle. The idea of him marking her up, being able to press on the bruises tomorrow and have them as an ingrained reminder of this moment was infatuating.

"Fuck, cyar'ika," Mando groaned, his hands going to her thighs, pulling them around him. She squeaked a little as he lifted her up, groping her ass as he did so. "Relax," he chuckled in her ear, surprisingly soft. "I'm not going to drop you."

"You'd better not," she breathed, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. He sat them both on the main pilot chair, her knees either side of his strong thighs. Almost frantically, he ran his hands up her sides, as if savouring the drag of fabric against his skin. Lis realised that was probably exactly what he was doing; constantly covered in gloves meant that  _ really  _ feeling something wasn’t a common occurrence.

She ground herself into his lap, feeling his generous length rub her through far too many layers of fabric. It was a much better angle than it had been before, she felt so much more open to him like this, but it still wasn’t enough and would never be enough now she had felt what his fingers could do.

“Mando, shit,” she moaned, leaning her hands on his chestplate. His own were everywhere at once, her sides tugging at her top, across her ass to grip the flesh there, before settling on her hips once more to guide her on his lap. “I want you to fuck me.”

His reaction to her words was to hook his fingers into her collar, ripping her shirt clean down the middle till so that the only thing covering her top half was her black microgarments. She never liked that shirt much anway. “Mando, please fuck me,” she begged, rolling her hips. He was as hard as the beskar he wore, and her core ached at the thought of how he would feel inside her. 

“Din.” He half spoke, half groaned. His helmet tilted down, watching the view as she rode him. As he began to push up the microgarment supporting her breasts, his hands paused, a slight tremor in his fingers.

“What?” She pulled back slightly, too caught up in the feeling of him to work out what he had said.

“Nothing, never mind,” he forced out, sounding like he had just run a marathon. Lis brought her hands down, fumbling with his belt but he gently took her fingers. “Lis.”

She continued to move him, not understanding why he had stopped.

“Lissa!” He yanked her back by her hips, forcing her to stop.

“What!”

Lis pulled back, sitting on his thighs rather than on his crotch. He was still hard, she realised, but the tone had well and truly shifted. “What is it?”

Ever so gently his thumb traced the deep, pitted, scar that went just below the right hand side of her ribcage. Ah, that old thing.

She shook her head, plastering a smile on her face. “What? You suddenly don’t fancy me because of an old surgery scar?”

She searched the front of his mask, he was still tilted to looking at it.

“Lis, I know what a back-alley transmitter removal looks like.” Finally he looked at her face. Her own warped and blurry reflection stared back. Lis pressed her lips together, glancing at the ceiling and clenching her jaw. She counted three breaths before they stopped sounding shaky. Finally, she looked back at him.

“So what? Hm?” She raised her brows and forced out a bitter laugh. “Will I be your next quarry?”

He didn’t respond. She eased herself off his lap, thanking the Maker when her legs held her weight and didn’t buckle like she expected them to.

“Lissa, I-” he cut himself off, “If I had known I wouldn’t have-”

“No,” she straightened herself. “You’re right, this was a mistake. I guess you have two pieces of wanted cargo aboard.”

She spat that last sentence, not missing the way he flinched as she alluded to the child. There wasn’t many places she could go in the small ship, but slamming the sliding door of the fresher shut proved to be satisfying enough for her in the moment.

With a groan, she let her head drop into her hands. The kid was crying again. 

Fuck it, Mando could deal with it for a change.


	2. It's the Conversation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains very VERY brief mentions of sexual abuse and slavery, so if that's something that bothers you please be aware it's in there! Nothing graphic at all, it's just mentioned in passing.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who left a wee comment on the last chapter, it really gave me the motivation to post this one days ahead of when I originally intended. I'm so happy people are reading/enjoying what I've written! If you didn't leave a comment/kudos, I'd love to hear your feedback if there was something you didn't like as much or would want expanded on further?
> 
> Otherwise hope yall enjoy, this is a lil bit of tease hehe

The kid could tell something was wrong, Lis knew it. For all he liked to pretend to be cute and dumb, he understood fine and well what was going on around him. 

Things were now very tense aboard the Razor Crest, and she knew the child could tell. If it wasn't from the general vibe of the place, it was from the way his two surrogate parents now only spoke in harsh, one word replies to each other. It was like back to her first week aboard again, only this time whenever she saw that quick flash of beskar or swish of Cape she didn't want to jump his bones, she wanted to jump out the airlock.

Unfortunately for her, in the small ship it was nearly impossible to avoid each other for long, and he soon cornered her in the cargo hold as he was putting the child to sleep and she was working on the hydraulics of the carbonite freezing chamber.

"We need to talk," Mando's voice was quieter than usual, she noticed. Probably something to do with the fact he had finally got the child to settle, switching between ordering firmly and desperately negotiating back and forth for the last twenty minutes. If the kid wasn't in the mood to sleep he loved to make it everyone else's problem. Mando stood next to her where she sat on the ground. The power imbalance made her shift uncomfortably and he noticeably took a step back.

"I have to finish this,” she said bluntly, not really wanting to engage him. Had this been a month ago, she would have leaped at the fact that he was the one initiating the conversation. Now instead she was dreading the inevitable confrontation that had been brewing and was at the point of boiling over.

"I didn't mean...how it sounded, I just-"

"I get it," she said curtly, barely glancing at him. "It's fine."

"If another member of the guild is after you, I'll help you. But I need to know exactly who you're running from."

She scoffed, jamming the wrench she had been using back in her tool belt and hauling herself to her feet. She couldn't focus on work while he was saying this shit.

"Oh, lucky me! The great Mandalorian, saviour of innocent children and runaway slaves," she clasped her hands together, in mock adoration, "I'm so fortunate he decided he chose to liberate me, even if it means I have to suck his dick once in a while as thanks."

"Quit it," he hissed, glancing to where the child was tucked in. Lis blanched, seeing two big brown eyes blinking back at her. Her stomach lurched, had he heard what she had said?

The Child's oversized head titled, regarding her. She took a step towards him, but Mando grabbed her arm.

"Go upstairs and wait for me."

Lis bounced her leg as she sat on the co-pilot chair. Kriff, she was a mess. They were still in hyperspace, the white lights streaking past and illuminating the cockpit in a bright light that she could pretend was the reason her eyes stinging uncomfortably. 

Heavy boots coming up the ladder caused her to hastily scrub her eyes, leaning back casually as Mando stepped through the doorway.

He wordlessly sat in the pilot's chair, flicking switches to make himself look busy, but Lis knew they did nothing while in hyperspace. It made her feel a little better that he felt as uncomfortable as she did.

"Do you wanna go first or should I?" She sighed, pressing her boot to the back of his seat, tilting her own seat back with the resistance.

"I think you owe me an explanation."

She picked at a loose thread on her shirt.

"I used to be a spice smuggler. There I said it." He spun the seat around so quickly her leg slipped off, clearly annoyed by her response. "And I was pretty fucking good at it too, and I found I was even better at keeping our droids and starship running. So I decided to become a mechanic. It's a lot less illegal, you know?"

Lis glanced up at him when he didn’t react. "But that's not what you want to hear, is it?"

"No."

Lis scoffed averting her eyes, "What is there to explain? I've had a lot of jobs in my life! I was a slave, and now I'm a mechanic."

"Lissa, that's not how it works," he sighed, "There's always someone missing-"

"Their property?"

Mando cocked his head to the side. "Yes."

"You don't think I know that?" She narrowed her eyes, leaning forward. "I’ve been doing this a long fucking time now.”

Mando shifted in his chair, leaning forward to match her posture. "Lis, you have to know that the last thing we need is  _ more _ bounty hunters coming after us. The kid-"

"I can't believe you think I would put him in any more danger than he's already in," she shook her head, "Believe it or not I care about him! I care about both of-"

She cut herself off abruptly, then sat back, breathing through her nose angrily. He let her fume.

"You don't know what it's like, okay? Having absolutely everything you know ripped out from under you and having to live with it."

"I do know what that's like."

"No, you don't, Mando!" She stood abruptly and he drew back, watching her. "When the Maker rolled the dice for us, yours came up a perfect eleven and mine…"

She paced the small space, searching for the right words. "Mine fell onto the floor and into the puddle of Rodian vomit under the table!"

“Just tell me what-”

"What do you want to hear, Mando? You want to hear about how I had to wear a collar and chain and be tugged around like an animal?"

She watched him stiffen.

"Do you want to hear about the people I was forced to let fuck me? Or how about the time I was high on glitterstim non-stop for two months? Or, oh you'll love this one, how I was made to give fellatio to a droid while people cheered me on?"

The slightest tilt to his mask was the only indexation of his reaction, but she could practically feel the waves of discomfort rolling off him.

"Does this make you uncomfortable to hear about?" Still nothing. "So how do you think I feel having lived it?"

"Lissa-"

"It was a spice runner who saved me, actually," she sat back down in her chair, interrupting whatever he was about to say. "Yeah, he was apparently from my home planet. Which I never had any fucking memory of anyway, or not anything that mattered anyway. He stole me away one night, it was all very romantic."

"He had this droid best friend as his co-pilot which I always thought was really weird, but the droid was the one who removed the tracker, so blame him for the bad stitching job. Ex-medical droid, my ass. He didn't even have any bacta on him." She tutted, flicking her hair as she shook her head.

"Anyway that's me. Now you go."

Mando was quiet for a long time. His shoulders sagged.

"I don't want to make you uncomfortable. I'm not - I'm - you can always say no to me,” he said quietly.

Oh. That made more sense. 

He wasn’t angry at her for lying to him, he was uncomfortable with what they had done yesterday given her background. She couldn’t even fault him for that. Lis usually didn’t tell people for this exact reason; they always treated her differently, like she was now suddenly fragile and breakable if they said the wrong thing in the wrong tone. Truth be told, she had long ago just accepted the fact that her life was the way it was and that was it. There was no point in dwelling on the past, she clung to the present for her identity. 

She snorted, "Way ahead of you, mate."

It might have been a laugh she heard, maybe not. Either way, it was evident they had come to some sort of resolution, even temporarily.

“So what now?” She hoped he wouldn’t say forget it, forget what they had started, close the lid on the can of worms they had cracked open no matter how hard it was. 

“I’m not, um,” he shook his head, “I’m not used to this. Having someone always around.”

“You’ll get used to it.”

“I don’t think I can ever be used to you.”

She didn’t know if that was supposed to be a complement or not. She was about to pack herself up, call it a day and leave when he spoke again.

“In my culture, we believe that people are defined by their actions, not where they are born into." She thought she understood what he was getting at, despite the fact his words came out slightly stilted. “As a Mandalorian I’ve never even visited Mandalore. But my actions, the way I choose to live is what makes me Mandalorian.”

"Thanks, Mando," she smiled, shrugging off the lingering feelings of discomfort she had discussing her past. It was clear they were far from over dealing with things, but the battle was over for now. She had got through the first hurdle with only minor bruising to her feelings of self worth. "Who knows, maybe I'll become a Mandalorian too one day?"

She scrunched up her nose, "Actually never mind. It would be a crime to hide this face."

  
  


Stars, what was wrong with him? Why couldn’t he stamp out the childish infatuation with her that he had. Din watched Lis bounce out the cockpit, away to work on whatever vague technical project she had ongoing at the moment. 

It was the thought of her becoming a Mandalorian that had done it, the idea of her wearing his armour, being part of his creed, his clan. The thought of her feeling that sense of belonging that he felt, being able to recite vows with her and finally be able to take his helmet off in front of her and kiss her like she deserved to be kissed, like he wanted to do the other day  _ so _ bad, and-

He was hard. Din let out a grunt of annoyance, heavily sitting back down onto the main pilot’s chair and letting his helmet fall back onto the headrest. Deliberating about how he should fix his problem only made it worse. Briefly, he considered leaving the relative privacy that the cockpit granted him, hunting the ship till he found Lis and slamming her up against the wall, taking her right there and damning the consequences. He could so easily catch her off guard, she always got so wrapped up in her work, pin both her arms above her head with only one hand and allow himself free reign to do whatever he wanted with her.

He clenched his fist. No, he couldn’t do that. Not to her. It wasn’t right to ask that of her, given all she had gone through. She had probably went through enough of that already. Shit, he just wished she had said something before he had said all that stuff while he was buried knuckle deep in her. But then again she had seemed to like it. A lot.

With a quiet groan he hurriedly pulled his gloves off and grabbed at his belt, undoing the buckle like she had tried to do before. What would have happened if he had let her continue? Would she have taken her trousers off, sliding her undergarments to the side so he could slip into her? It would be so easy, he thought as he pulled his dick out and breathed out a harsh sigh as it was freed from its constraints. She was so wet from him already. She could sink down onto him, her strong thighs supporting her either side of his with her hands on his chest. 

He palmed himself, the dryness of his hands adding friction that again reminded him of how she had ground down on him before, as if he was the only thing she could ever need in that moment. He wished more than anything he hadn't stopped her, hadn't fucked everything up in a split second. Even with the underwear, the sight of her bare skin had captivated him. Both of them were usually so covered in layers, him more so than her, granted, but seeing her chest flushed and panting thanks to him made him want to turn up the heating on the ship just so he could see her bare at any time of day. He should have just left well enough alone, let the past remain the past without upsetting her.

If he had, it might be her wet heat he was fucking now instead of his own hand. 

The thought made his grip tighten, and he slammed his hand against the armrest of the chair, causing it to rattle. 

"Fuck, Lissa," he hissed. Din gritted his teeth, trying to stay quiet as every muscle in his abdomen clenched as he came, white hot, the pressure snapping inside like a worn out dam. He imagined it was her chest, or her open, wanting mouth he was releasing over rather than his own hand and thighs. The thought alone caused his orgasm to drag out, shudders wracking through his body as he pumped himself through it. 

When he was finally finished, Din slumped back in the chair, his spine curved slightly at the base.

"Shit," he panted, looking at the mess he had made. Usually he did this in the refresher, running water and cloth to clean himself off with. Now he sat, unable to relax despite the warm glow that spread from the tips of his toes to his chest. He still couldn't stop thinking about her.

Din stumbled to the refresher down the hallway as quickly as he could, praying that he didn't run into Lis in the short walk. Thankfully, he could hear the sound of her quietly humming to herself floating up from the cargo hold. She could probably hear him walking around up there, but that was hopefully the extent of what she could listen in on.

He still felt pent-up. Even as he cleaned his now soft dick and hands, he was still coiled tight like a spring. This couldn't be how it would be from now on. His skin was singing like he had just come down from a battle, adrenalin pumping and blood rushing in his ears. 

Exiting the refresher, Lis had fallen silent again, no longer humming. Din could still hear the occasional sound of movement or when she placed a tool down, as quiet as possible.

She was always so considerate of the kid, that was why he'd felt so bad at her outburst. It wasn't her, he knew that, she was reacting defensively to what she thought was him accusing her of being stupid. And maybe he had thought that for a moment. No, scratch that. Not stupid at all, he never thought that, but he couldn't help this primal instinct he had to want to keep her and the child safe. It was what made him go back for the little green guy in the first place, on the run from so many people just to give him a decent chance at life, and he'd do the same for Lissa if needed with zero hesitation.

Why in such a short time had she become so important to him? It was like once he took in the kid the floodgates had opened for every sob-story in the galaxy to come in and tug on his heart strings. He caught himself again, no, it wasn't that either. 

When he'd first seen her she'd had this air of brazen confidence about her, and the way she spoke to him left him with no doubts that she and Peli were good friends as well as co-workers. It was when she had shouted a "wait" to him just as they were about to head on to the ship for the first time, he had seen a softness of emotion flickering in her eyes. Lis had jogged down the ramp to the three annoying pit droids that worked in the hangar with her. She had taken a turn affectionately patting each of them on their scuffed and rusted heads, saying something inaudible to them as she did so. When she made her way back up to the cargo hold, visibly blinking back tears he had had to force himself not to reach out and cup her face in his hands. If that had been the way she acted towards some rust buckets, surely she would do right by the kid if anything ever happened to him.

Going down the ladder he paused at the base, realising Lis was leaning against the side. Carefully he stepped to the opposite side, avoiding even the chance of stepping on her by accident.

Din realised with a lurch that her legs were crossed and the child was sitting in the middle, like a small nest, as he played with the silver ball that had come off the joystick.

"I'm making you something," she didn't look up from her tinkering, speaking in a low voice to not disrupt the peaceful mood of the hold.

"Me?" His throat bobbed as he swallowed, but of course she wouldn't be able to see that even if she was looking at him. "What is it?"

"It's not done yet." He realised she liked to lay out all the tools she was using in a specific order that meant something to her and only her, placing each one back in the same place each time. "I want to give it a spin beforehand, to test it's working."

Maybe he should ask how she was feeling? If she needed anything? He opened his mouth to do so, but the only thing that came out was "Alright."

She smiled when the child looked up at her, babbling something incomprehensible. 

He sat down in the small bunk that she had started sleeping in, resting his knees on his elbows. Previously, it had been where he slept, but now he took the captain’s quarters behind the cockpit. She acted like she preferred it for when she couldn’t sleep, being closer to the space to work. Din suspected it had more to do with being closer to the kid, although she would never admit it. Occasionally he had found her sleeping, curled protectively around him or slumped against the wall, one hand limply holding his small green fingers as he slept in his carrier.

"Tell me about when you were a spice runner?"

Lis' working slowed for a second, barely noticeable unless, like him, you were transfixed by every movement of her nimble hands. "It was a crew of five. I started working with the guy who had freed me in the first place, I didn't really have many other job offers. I liked it though, Anderon was... nice."

"Why did you stop?" He ignored the way a small pink tinge kissed her cheeks when she said the other man's name.

"It all got a bit much, I didn't wanna work for the Hutts which was the direction we seemed to be heading in. And I told you, I realised I had a knack for fixing and building things." She waggled what she was working on. It looked like a modification to slot into his vambrace. He wondered what she planned it to do. "You ever do any spice?"

"I, uh, yeah," he confessed. "When I was younger.”

He didn't tell her how brutal he had been back then. He couldn’t. Tearing through bodies of innocent people, relishing in the fear he knew he struck into hearts. But that wasn’t him anymore. Like Lis, he had changed. Din didn’t even recognise the person he had been, and he certainly didn't want her to look at him like that now.

"I used to be such a fiend for deathsticks. Ugh, I wasted so many good hands on Canto Bight high on those," she laughed. It wasn't the first time she had brought up the gambling city to him, and Din had a feeling it wouldn't be the last. "What an idiot I was, those things rot your brain. Very bad. You would never use spice, would you?"

She directed that last part at the child, her tone noticeably lighter when she spoke to him. He couldn’t help but smile at her interacting. There was that familiar, protective tugging in the pit of his stomach, seeing them both together like this. Nice, normal, domestic. He ached to shift from the cot, slide on to the floor and sit behind her. Have her lean back on his chest and just hold her. Not even in a sexual way. Shit, he had it bad.

Din noticed she was also glancing at him and he smirked, realising she was stealing looks at his bare hands. He had forgotten to put his gloves back on after what he had done upstairs. Maybe she knew, and had heard him after all. The thought made him twitch under all his layers of armour. Could she, like him, not stop replaying the moment he had slid his fingers into her over and over in her head? Seemingly innocently, he scrubbed at his palm with his thumb, similar to the motion he had pressed onto her tongue, imagining it was his-

“Where are we off to next, boss?”

He blinked. Maybe he had misread the look on her face. It had been a while since he had kept any kind of romantic company, and being constantly behind a mask made it a little harder to make your intentions clear without verbal communication.

That’s right, though. They had a destination in mind; the kids home planet, wherever that was. He knew where Lis wanted to go, she wasn’t as subtle as she thought she was when she “casually” brought up things.

“Not Cantonica.”

“Why not!” She cried, dropping the vambrace in outrage. “What if he’s from there and we just don’t check?”

“I’m not having you lose all our credits in Canto Bight because you think you’re the best sabacc player in the galaxy,” he leaned back against the wall, still watching her.

“If I’m not the best player, then why do I keep winning?” she said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. She had a fair point, he didn’t think he’d even won once against her. “Come on, Mando,” she pleaded, “If not Cantonica, at least pick up some jobs where the quarry is hiding out in the Core Worlds. I’m sick of places that only have one cantina for the entire planet.”

“I have a couple jobs lined up. When those are done we can talk about it.” He knew that the lifestyle he lived could feel restrictive at times, and he did feel guilty keeping her cooped up on the ship for most of the days while he came in and out with quarry after quarry. Especially when it became clear that while she wasn’t outwardly complaining, she was suffering from the mind-numbing cabin fever that occurred after being on the same ship for the longest time.

“You just know I’ll show you up in front of someone other than the kid,” she said, stretching her leg out with a grimace, turning to address the child again, “The same one who has been sitting on me for way too long at this point. Up, before my legs fall off.”

He hated the way he was actually considering going to Canto fucking Bight for her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooft there's just something about the thought of Mando wanking that gets me, idk whyyyy. Also again tysm for all the people that commented on the last chapter, yous honestly give me life and make posting these things worth it <3
> 
> I have a question for you guys going forward; would you guys think it would be better to check in occasionally with the main plot of season 1 as I go, or just keep it in some nebulous timeline between season 1 and 2 that most fics seem to do? Or just fuck it, we're re-writing season 1 lmao lmk because I have a plot that works for either option.
> 
> Also what did yous think of Mando's POV in this chapter? I'm not sure if it's something I'll do every single chapter, but it's nice to hear what he's thinking every now and then imo


	3. It's the Quarry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mando gets defensive and Lis says thank you in the best way she knows how.

The next planet Mando dragged her to wasn't Cantonica like she had hoped. It was some small, mostly forest planet. Lis was sure he'd told her the name of it, but she couldn't for the life of her remember what it was.

"You can practice with your blaster here," Mando said, the ramp lowering to reveal lush vegetation and greenery. "There's no population for miles." After spending so long on Tatooine Lis got embarrassingly excited at the thought of places where water wasn't a scarce commodity. Where life thrived, and you didn't need round the clock moisture farmers pulling the water from the atmosphere just to have something to drink.

"My shooting is fine!" She insisted, folding her arms. Maybe she wasn't as good as him at it, but cut her some slack, who was? She could point and aim and sometimes even hit something, which was more than most people.

"It's an insult to call what you do shooting," Mando scoffed in that same practically monotone she was so used to listening to.

Things had seemed to settle out again after their talk, even if things were a little awkward on occasion. There was still that unspoken tension between them, it felt like an electric charge running under her skin any time they were alone together.

"You think my shooting is fine, don't you?" She asked the child, floating beside her in his bassinet. She received a slow blink in response.

"Just stay around the ship," Mando said, pulling out the blinking tracker seemingly from nowhere. "You never know who's lurking around planets like this."

"Yeah," Lis laughed, "Like bounty hunters and spice smugglers and small green gremlins."

"Very funny." His tone indicated she was anything but, Lis didn't take it personally though.

“Maybe you can teach me when you come back.” She called, but he didn’t reply. She watched him stalk off into the trees till he was well out of sight.

Although she started off fully intending to practice shooting, the kid finding various frogs and butterflies to chase around was far more entertaining to watch. Lis desperately hoped all his running around would tire him out and mean she wouldn't be woken up by him halfway through the night.

"That's great buddy," she smiled as he held up a purple frog with both hands, her smile dropped when he swallowed it down in one gulp, "No! Hey! You know you're not allowed to do that!"

The child blinked up at her innocently, as if butter wouldn't melt. Lis sighed. "Oh yes, you're very cute."

She glanced around at their surroundings, sitting down next to the child with a huff. Mando had been gone a few hours, the sun setting just beyond the horizon, casting a pale orange glow over everything. There was no sure and fast way of telling how long a quarry would take to wrangle, especially on a pretty isolated planet like this one. Lis was used to the boredom of waiting on him, sometimes for days at a time. It was now a lot clearer why she had been brought on to watch the kid in the meantime, she couldn’t imagine leaving him by himself on the ship for this long.

At least they didn’t have to be cooped up on the Crest this time, this planet seemed to be one of the nicer ones, nothing trying to eat or attack them. Nice and quiet. Only the chirping sound of birds and the occasional breeze through the tall trees broke the silence that seemed to wrap around them like a thick blanket. Lis resisted the urge to keep working on the vambrace addition she had been making for Mando. She was praying to the maker that it would actually work when she tried it out, but she still hadn't had a chance to try it out, thanks to his aversion to droids. She didn’t want to do exactly what she did on the Crest, hunched over a piece of machinery, except this time outside. Her back was certainly thanking her for it, but her fingers were twitching with the urge to just create.

"You think it's time for food yet?" She asked the kid, who tilted his head at her in response, dropping to a sitting position next to her in an imitation of what she had done.

"Yeah, you're right," Lis tutted, "it's too early, we should wait a bit longer. And you filled yourself up on that frog."

The kid picked up a small twig, snapping it, as if the action was the most fascinating thing in the world. "I can't say I blame you. I'm getting pretty sick of ration packs too. See, that's why I think we should head for the Core Worlds. Or at least the Inner Rim."

No reply from the child. She took that as a sign of agreement.

"I'm actually from the Inner Rim. Originally. Where are you from?" 

No reply, not even a babble. But his large eyes were watchful, and his ears tilted downwards like he was listening. Lis sighed, glancing off into the trees.

"A small cluster of planets just on the very edge of the Inner Rim, that's me. If you know them? It's okay if you don't, they're pretty quiet in the grand scheme of things. I went back, but it just made me sad..."

She jumped, feeling a tiny hand on her arm. Lis lifted the child up, resting him on her lap.

"I remember when I was young I would play at night in the Gamma forests just like this. Except at night, everything glows. All the trees, and bugs, and fish.”

“Anderon once told me 'we glow to find our way home'. I don't think- I don't really feel at home anywhere though, tell you the truth.” She blinked back tears, looking up at the clear sky to will them away, then back down at the kid. She didn’t know if she was projecting or not, but his own little face looked as sad as she felt. The sky was growing dark now. “Except sometimes. With you and your dad."

Lis shivered against the growing cold of the evening air, and it was like the spell had been broken.

“Right,” she bounced to her feet, lifting the child with her. He made a noise of protest, dropping the leaf he had been playing with. “Time for dinner I think. How about we get a fire going? Help me find sticks.”

Once they had both eaten the too-dry and stale ration packs, meagerly heated by the fire to warm them up without burning them, Lis held the child to her as he drifted off. 

She gazed into the crackling and popping fire, lost in her own thoughts for a moment, caught up in maintaining a gentle rocking motion to lull the bundle of green in arms. She couldn’t remember her mother’s voice, or her face, but she could remember the way the stupid glowing trees. It was ridiculous the things that her brain had deemed important enough to remember. She remembered the first time Anderon had recognised her, in that maker forsaken club wearing half her clothes. The way he had perked up when he caught sight of her had made her think he wanted to pay for her for a couple hours, and no matter how much she tried to scrub it from her memory the crushed look on his face when she had offered it to him would never stop being ingrained in her brain. 

It had been a while since she’d seen him. He refused to step foot on Tatooine and took her deciding to settle there for a while as a personal insult to him and all he stood for. The glare on his face when she had told him that she had found a job there was another thing she would never forget, and she had wondered if he had been this bratty when they were children together and just hadn’t grown out of it or if it was a recent thing. Maybe she should send him a transmission, let him know she wasn’t on Tatooine anymore. Although she doubted he would see her choice to work for a bounty hunter any better.

Speaking of which, she heard Mando approaching before she saw him. The heavy clunking of his armour was no longer masked by the noise of the forest, every noise so much louder sounding at night with nothing to contrast it with.

“You baby him too much,” he said to Lis, towering over her as he came to a halt by the fire side, the quarry cuffed behind him. “He needs to learn to sleep on his own.”

“Well, he missed you. I had to comfort him,” she lied indignantly, carefully placing the child in his bassinet, trying to jostle him as little as possible. The lid made a whooshing noise as it closed over, shielding his peaceful form. “You were gone for so long.”

“Don’t blame me for that,” Mando said, his tone bemused, not believing her. He gestured to the quarry behind him, evidently a Hapan, judging by his good looks and the way he was whipping his head around to any noise, almost totally blind in the low light of the evening. “Some people just only think of themselves.”

“Hey!” the Hapan said, a frown on his fine features, “Sorry I don’t want to  _ die _ .”

Lis rolled her eyes and stomped out the dying remains of the fire as Mando headed up the ramp of the ship, the quarry and the child's bassinet following close behind him. She pressed her lips together when the Hapan stumbled, trying not to laugh. It wasn't funny.

"Maybe we can put the lights on?" She suggested, following closely behind and flicking a switch behind one of the benches. The lights blinked on, and the Hapan squinted against them.

"Ugh, at least give me a little warning, Mando," he said. Mando didn’t reply, instead pushed the child’s bassinet into its usual corner, tucked out the way of any potentially rowdy quarries. Not that Lis thought this one would be much of a problem, he seemed to have pretty much accepted his fate at this point, pouting now that he could actually see in the fluorescent white light illuminating the ship. He was probably some rich person’s son that had racked up debt to the wrong people after being cut off.

“Hey, I know you.” It took Lis a minute to realise he was talking to her.

“Sorry mate, I get that a lot,” she shrugged, passing by him intending to head up to the cockpit and start the take off sequence.

“No, no,” the Hapan stopped her with a cuffed hand on her arm and Lis paused, narrowing her eyes. What was this guy’s problem? Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Mando tensing, though he kept his usual stoic demeanour in front of the quarry. “I really know you, you’re super familiar.”

She grimaced, tugging her arm out his grip, “I used to be a spice smuggler, so maybe you’ve seen me ar-”

“You used to work for Horo Tarkal!” The Hapan wagged a finger, his face lighting up in recognition. “Yeah, I remember-”

“I don’t know what you’re talking ab-”

“You used to cost a hundred credits! Yeah! They used to make you cry on command! Hey Mando, I think I have about hundred credits on me, what do you say-”

BANG.

Lis jumped, she hadn’t even seen Mando move until he had slammed the Hapan’s head into the side of the ladder next to her hand. The man crumpled immediately, his skull very visibly dented and Lis noticed a small splattering of his blood across her knuckles that were still resting on the cold metal of the ladder.

Mando wordlessly hauled him up, tossing him into the carbonite chamber with a grunt.

Lis watched him stand there, even as the machine hissed to a halt, both of them breathing heavily. Mando’s fists clenched and unclenched at his sides, clearly still angry.

“I don’t need you doing that shit for me,” Lis clenched her jaw, taking a step towards him. “I’m not some fucking Princess. I can fight my own battles.”

He was infuriatingly silent, before turning to face her.

“No,” he replied, a hint of a sigh in his voice, sweeping past her and quickly ascending the stairs. 

Lis threw her hands up, even though he couldn’t see her, “No, what? You’re so fucking annoying sometimes.”

She caught sight of the blood still on the back of her hand. Angrilly, she scrubbed her knuckles against her trouser leg, trying to remove the blood but only really succeeding in smearing it. When she felt the engine rumble to life she decided to follow him. As her heart rate slowed, she realised she wasn’t actually angry at him. She was...embarrassed. Hadn’t she been the one promising that her past wouldn’t be an issue? Yet she had frozen when that Hapan had brought up  _ him. _ His name hadn’t wormed it’s way into her brain in years, and here was this random stranger dragging it back up.This wasn’t going to help her rocky relationship with Mando, that was for sure. Lis shook her head, almost laughing at herself. What a joke, they weren’t in a fucking realtionship, that was for sure. Whatever was going on between them was out of necessity, she told herself firmly. Two warm bodies in the same space, no one could blame them for stupid mistakes.

Steeling herself, she determinedly climbed the ladder. One rung after the other. 

In the cockpit Mando was in the captain’s chair as usual, his back to her.

“Come to say thank you?”

She almost sighed at his teasing. It was a welcome relief to the radiating anger she had been expecting from him.

“Just wondering if he’ll survive the trip.” She didn’t sit behind him as she usually would, instead hovering slightly to his right. “What with his brains all spilling out as they were.”

“The carbonite will keep him stable,” Mando said, “After that, whoever the client was can deal with him.”

They both fell silent again. The ship entered into Hyperspace, and Lis placed a careful hand on his pauldron to steady herself against the slight jostle. She didn’t take it off when the motion levelled out, even though there was no need for it.

Wordlessly, she moved in front of him, sliding down over his lap and hooking her forearm over the back of his neck. If she didn’t know any better she’d say he was trembling.

“Lissa…” His voice came out as a shaky breath, his hands fluttering over her, not knowing where to put them. “I don’t want to hurt you. Ever.”

“Mando,” she replied, slightly teasing, covering her hands with his and pressing them to rest on her hips. “I’m not breakable. I never have been.”

She leaned forward, letting herself drop down onto him fully. The initial contact was slow, grinding her hips down in a cautious imitation of what she had done so much more hurried and frantically the first time. She let her hands explore, pressing at the small strips of cloth not covered by beskar or thick leather armour, feeling the burning heat of his skin through the clothing. Lis could feel each breath he took, each of them amplified in their proximity, his chest rising and falling with the occasional stutter when she moved her hips.

His own hands were still locked in place, not daring to move even an inch, even when she succeeded where she had failed the last time, undoing his belt and shifting his trousers down just enough to free his dick.

She sat back on his thighs, his hands helping her stay upright as she tentatively ran her thumb over the underside of him. He twitched in her gentle grip, letting out a sharp hiss.

“Stop teasing,” he probably intended to sound threatening when he said it, but his strained tone gave away everything.

Lis smiled innocently, properly taking him in her hand. “I’m just saying thank you.”

Mando’s moan slipped out, tinny and strange sounding behind the mask. She moved her leg so she was straddling one of his thighs rather than both, beginning to stroke him. His hand reached out to cover hers, guiding her to grip him just right to match the pace that he liked.

She gripped the forearm still on her hip, letting out a gentle exhale as she began to move back and forth in time with them. She could feel Mando’s eyes burning into her under the mask and he let out a quiet “fuck” when she clenched herself against his well muscled thigh.

Almost on impulse his hand reached up, faster than the hyperspace they were travelling in, cupping her breast through the microgarments. She watched the helmet tilt downwards, transfixed by his own actions. Her own skin burned under his grip when he roughly palmed her, seemingly giving up his hesitation in favour of giving in to his own desire.

Arguably, this whole thing was more for her benefit than his, despite what she had said previously. She wasn’t fully focused on what her hand was doing, letting him guide her. The rough sensation of his armour through her trousers was the most frustrating relief she had ever felt; the smooth metal doing little other than a dull sensation that made her clench her teeth. It’s too much and it’s too little and it’s not enough. His thumb caressed her nipple through the fabric and she whimpered, squeezing him tighter in her hand. 

She didn’t know his real name, and she would probably never know his face. The only thing she had was the solid feeling of him, the soft skin of him under her fingers and the rush of exhilaration that flooded through her at his guttural moan.

Lis pulled back abruptly, planting her feet on the ground to stand above him, grinning as his hands trailed after her. She pulled her top over her head, carelessly tossing it to the side and dropping to her knees between his legs. He spread them wider, cupping her jaw as she ran her hands up his thighs, her hands going back to his length. After stroking him for a moment she ducked her head down to softly lick at the small amount of wetness that had formed at the tip.

“Lis, shit.”

She hesitated when he spoke, assuming he was going to stop her. She wasn’t ready for the words that spilled out, causing her to blush even though she was already in a pretty compromising position. 

“Fuck Lissa,” he panted, “Could cum from just looking at you like this, ready to take me in your pretty mouth, so beautiful, fucking…”

There was something about this man, one who struck the fear of the Maker into people’s hearts when they caught sight of him, reduced to a mess of a string of thoughts pouring out his mouth at the smallest of gestures. Very deliberately she leaned forward again, lightly sucking on his tip and smirking when he let out a gasp.

“C-Can I fuck your mouth?” 

His question made her gush into her underwear and in response she widened her jaw, taking him as far as she could down her throat.

Mando positively keened above her, his hand gripping her messily tied back hair as his hips bucked up, forcing himself further into her mouth. The stretch of her lips around him caused Lis’ head to spin, imagining how he would feel inside, fucking her for real. He was so much bigger and thicker than she had imagined, even though what she had felt under her before had left little to the imagination. She trailed a hand up his abdomen, stretching up till her fingertips brushed his collar. She didn’t know what she was reaching for, just that she needed to be closer to him, to hold him somehow.

Bobbing her head back, she ran her tongue up the length of him like a lollipop, following her mouth with her hand, his skin slick with spit. Out of the corner of her eye she saw his gloves drop to the floor, and he cupped her jaw again, pulling her to look up at him.

She must have been a state, hair all over the place from where he had run his hand through it and shiny, reddened lips. 

"I'll fucking kill them, Lissa." His head fell back and he ran his hand up her bare arm and grabbed her outstretched hand with his bare one, pressing it closer to him. He rolled his hips, his dick pulsing in her mouth as it was pushed back deeper. She widened her throat, despite being well practiced his size still causing her eyes to water. He groaned again, his pace quickening until she was just keeping her head still, the slide of his dick between her lips and across her tongue the only sensation she could focus on. She desperately pushed a hand down her trousers, slipping her own fingers between her dripping folds and hurriedly stroking herself. His words rang in her ears. He wanted to kill them. For her. He'd do that for her.

By the way his breathing picked up, and the frantic pace he was thrusting into her mouth, Lis could tell Mando was close. He was almost fully off his seat, his feet sliding on the floor next to her as he attempted to find purchase. Her fingers worked herself faster, moaning around him as she did so.

"No one is allowed to touch you except me."

It was the thought of how he had slammed the quarry into the ladder that made her plunge her fingers inside of her, stroking her clit with the heel of her hand as she did so. He hadn't even stopped to think, he'd just reacted. There was no motive behind it or ulterior goals when he'd done it, he was just angry. Angry that she had been spoken about like that, and angry that it had ever happened to her in the first place.

Heat bloomed in the bottom of her stomach, her orgasm creeping like an approaching loth-cat.

If it wasn't for Mando still in her mouth she would have cried out, instead she let out a choked moan around him. He fully bottomed out just as his own orgasm hit him, his hand on the back of her head pushing her down till he came deep in her throat. Her throat fluttered around him as she tried to swallow and she risked a glance up at him. He was facing straight ahead and she could see the base of his throat from this angle, his sallow skin pale from being kept out of the sun for the longest time. And the noises he made, oh fuck, the moan he tried to stifle that instead came out as a cry through clenched teeth. His seed pumped down her throat in waves and crests, and she pulled back, letting some of it hit her lips and drip down her chin.

When he finally came to an end, she felt it instantly, every muscle in his body relaxing with one final shudder. As he sat there breathing heavily he ran a hand down the side of her head, his limbs heavy with the calmness that followed his release. His thumb caught the cum just before it dripped, pushing it into her mouth.

She lapped at the sensitive skin between his index finger and thumb, cleaning his fingers. He let out a breath that might have been a laugh of disbelief.

Lis glanced up at him playfully tilting her head, her throat was wrecked and her voice hoarse when she spoke, “Thanks.”

As she rose to her feet, slightly wobbly, he caught her by the wrist that had been down her pants. Her fingers were still slick with her own juices and she scoffed, pausing for a second, before reaching out and dragging them down the front of his visor.

“You’re a nuisance.” He said, but his words held no malice. He still sounded out of breath slightly. She actually fucking giggled at him.

“You love it.” Lis turned to face the door, letting him sort himself as she tugged her top back on, the chill creeping in as her flush faded and her heart rate slowed. It was then that the rosy glow began to fade, as he was out of sight and the only sound between them was the shuffling of fabric.

“I meant it though,” she broke the silence hesitantly, “I-I don’t need you killing anyone for me.”

She heard him pause. 

“I feel...protective of you.”

“I know. But that’s not on you.”

She jumped when his hand gently gripped her elbow. She hadn’t even heard him standing up. He turned her to face him, the streaks she had left still faint smudges on his helmet as he looked down at her. They were almost the same height, but he managed to be so much more imposing somehow. Maybe something to do with him training to kill people since he was a child.

“I want to keep you safe. Both of you.” He tilted his head to the door, gesturing to where the child was hopefully still sleeping soundly. The sincerity in his voice almost made a tear well up in her eye. 

“That’s not your job, Mando.”

He nodded once, dropping his hand to his side. “When you’re ready. I’ll help you do what you need to do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you thank you thank you to everyone who reviewed last chapter! It meant so much to me! I think I'm defos just going to stick with my very liberal interpretation of the timeline, but don't worry, there will be our favourite characters appearing very soon. 
> 
> I hope you all like this new chapter today. Little bit more smut but no sex yet hehe. I actually debated putting this scene in or not, because I'm honestly not the greatest bj writer (as yous could probably tell lol) and I feel like it sound so awkward as I'm writing it. Anyway I felt like this was kind of a necessary step though, it made sense character-wise since I don't think Mando is quite ready to take his helmet off for Lis. Maybe now he will so he can "pay her back" ;) guess we'll just have to wait and see. 
> 
> Also what did you guys think about a lil teaser of Lis' backstory some more? Guess she remembers more than she likes to admit about her home planet. I wonder if we'll ever discover more about the mysterious Anderon and what he means for Mando...


	4. It's the Negotiations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mando returns the favour

"Spread your legs wider."

Lis flushed at Mando's commanding tone, unable to hold back her giggle.

"And get your mind out the gutter," he tutted. “You didn’t practice at the last planet we were on and we don’t have time to stop again if we want to make the next deadline.”

Mando was teaching her to shoot. Or rather, shoot to a standard he was happy with. Lis thought that her shooting was fine, she had never been injured (too badly) in any shootout she had been in and besides, in sticky situations she preferred to think rather than fire her way out.

"I can't help it," she deliberately pushed back into him teasingly. Mando roughly moved her hips back to their previous position. Since he was the expert in shooting she wasn’t going to question why he was wanting her to practice in the confined space of the cargo hold, rather than actually setting them down on some planet and practicing in an open space that meant she wasn’t at risk of killing either of them. It was bantha shit that they didn’t have time, she knew how long he had until he needed to bring the stacked pile of bodies frozen in carbonite in.

He had her aiming at an old droid carcass she had seen kicking about the ship whenever she was cleaning up, receiving a snapped rejection any time she offered to repair it.

“That droid is a killer,” he had said intently, and Lis had only rolled her eyes.

“So are you.”

Mando was now standing behind her, growing more and more annoyed each time he had to correct her stance. It wasn’t her fault that the blaster rifle was way too big for her to hold up for a long period of time.

“Stop letting your arms drop,” he sighed, nudging her outstretched elbow for what felt like the millionth time.

She knew he was frustrated. Since the incident with the Hapan they hadn’t been able to spend much time alone. When it wasn’t the child fussing too much it was a quarry with a tight deadline, or something needed major repairs in the rust bucket of a ship he refused to just trade in for a newer, more reliable model. He had been weirdly tense around her, and he would move like he wanted to approach and tell her something, only to shake his head at the last second and abandon the idea.

“Ugh, I don’t see why I need to be perfect at this,” Lis huffed, looking over her left shoulder at Mando’s helmet. “Isn’t that what you’re here for? I just keep this ancient artifact from falling apart in hyperspace.”

He didn’t say anything for a moment, but Lis realised his hands had naturally come to rest on her hips. It was nice, almost comfortable. And it wouldn’t take much for him to tug her backwards and-

“I have a job on Cantonica.”

Lis whipped round to properly look at him and he pulled his hands back like he had been burned. “You’re serious? Oh  _ Maker, _ Canto Bight isn’t going to know what hit it. I’m going to fucking clean them out.”

“Don’t- don’t get too excited,” he said warily, but she was already buzzing with energy at the thought of the glittering planet and all the rich sabacc players that had more money than sense that she was going to thrash at the high stakes tables. “But I figured after it’s done we could, you know, do...something. I know you want to visit.”

Oh so  _ that  _ was why they didn’t have time to stop. Stars, he was really doing that for her? Had her pestering finally paid off? And was she hearing a nervous note in his voice? Lis scolded herself, of course he wasn’t. He was just the kind of person who didn’t know how to let loose and have fun, especially in a party city like Canto Bight. Oh it was going to be so good, she was already planning exactly what she was going to do as soon as they landed.

“But,” he quickly warned, snapping her from her reeling thoughts, “We need to agree on some rules.”

“Yes!” Lis quickly agreed, “Of course, I agree.”

“No drinking. Or spice.”

“What!” He  _ really _ didn't know how to have fun.

“And no big bets. We can’t draw attention to ourselves.”

“Come on,” Lis groaned, “If anything small bets will draw more attention. If they even let us play in the first place! Mando, come on.”

“I’m not done.”

“There’s more!?”

“You have to properly shoot first. If you want to come with me.”

He roughly spun her to face the droid again.

“Shooting isn’t everything,” Lis ignored the tingling in the base of her neck when he let his hand come to rest between her shoulder blades. “I prefer to talk my way out of things.”

“You can’t talk your way out of a group of imps with blasters pointed at you,” he responded, “What if someone comes after the kid and I'm not there to protect you?"

Lis glanced at where the child was sleeping in his bassinet, passed out after a day of running around and bouncing off walls. She swallowed thickly. It didn’t do to dwell on negative things like what Mando was talking about. If anything happened to the child she literally didn’t know what she’d do. Mando might realise he no longer had any need for her either or maybe, even worse, he would grow to hate her for not doing everything she could to protect the small green alien.

“I told you before; I can handle it,” she raised the blaster in front of her again, feigning her indifference, “You know I used to be a spice smuggler, a couple snowmen don't scare me.”

"You need to take this stuff more seriously." Mando's stern voice made her roll her eyes and tut. “I won’t always be there.” 

"I was a fully fledged outlaw before you met me, that all hasn’t magically changed. Sorry Mando, I just don’t agree that the only way to solve problems is by shooting at them!"

"You can't talk your way out of a hail of blaster fire either!"

Lis felt her blood boil. He didn’t know shit about what she could do.

She shuffled, deliberately placing her feet in the wrong position. As soon as his hands left her waist she knew he was about to angrily nudge her feet back into position again, and instead of letting him do so she twisted her ankle, sliding the top of her boot against his heel. Before he could react, she roughly kicked out and swept his leg, spinning to face him with the momentum of the kick. Lis had the blaster pointed at his chest before he even hit the ground. A clattering thunk rang out when he landed, metal hitting metal on the solid floor.

Lis stood staring for a second, both breathing heavily. She didn't know if Mando was confused or just frozen in anger. Deciding to take her chances to reinforce her point, she took a step to lean her boot on his upper abdomen and pressed the end of the blaster into the part of his neck only protected by cloth rather than thick metal. He surprisingly let her do it, only letting out a small grunt when she dug it in harder than was probably necessary.

“Who said anything about talking?” She widened her eyes sarcastically, her tone mocking.

Deciding she had pushed her luck enough, she pulled back before he could retaliate. The only reason he hadn’t was probably because he was slightly stunned or seething with anger at the way she had so easily taken him down.

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone how easily I got you on your back.”

She glanced at where the kid was stirring, woken either by their raised voices or by the sound of her tackling Mando against the ground. “I got him.”

The child blinked up at her with wide, sleepy eyes. Lis was extra grateful that he hadn’t seen her taking Mando down, in the past he hadn’t exactly responded well to people hurting his daddy and she still wasn’t sure that she would be an exception to his tiny wrath.

She ignored Mando brushing past her, stomping up the ladder to the cockpit. “Don’t mind him,” she mumbled to the child, who watched his dad disappear into the ceiling. “He’s just in a bit of a mood.”

Once the gremlin was settled back down to sleep, Lis tucked him into his bassinet and pushed it into the small bunk. She waved at his sleeping form as the door slid shut, even though he couldn’t see her.

As she ascended the ladder after him, she no longer felt like shooting Mando in the face. The upper deck was almost pitch black, save a red small glow from some of the lights on the wall. Lis planned on entering the cockpit, but a shuffling from the captain’s quarters behind made her head that way instead. It’s not like she could fault the guy for being worried about them. She had probably been a little too snappy with him, but she didn’t think a sulk was warranted. For a Mandalorian he sure was being bratty.

The door slid open as she approached causing her to jump, Mando’s form silhouetted in the dark.

“Stars,” she breathed, “You scared the shit out of me, Mando.”

When he said nothing she continued on, unable to resist taunting him.

“Were you embarrassed that a simple mechanic was able to knock you down so easily?”

He said nothing again but she heard his modulated huff of annoyance under the tone of the modulator.

“It won’t happen again.”

“No?”

“No.”

Lis smirked, stepping forward and folding her arms. Despite the dark she could tell she was now chest to chest with him, not quite brushing him but centimetres away. She never did learn when to stop pushing people.

“It was so easy though,” she teased, reaching out a hand to poke him in the chest, “I’m actually beginning to think that you’re not as big and tough as you pretend to be.”

Mando grabbed her hand with a noise that could only be described as a growl, yanking her forward into the dark room with him. Before Lis could fathom any words of protest, his free hand grabbed her by the throat and the door slid shut behind her, plunging them fully into darkness.

Lis felt the cold of the door hit her back as he pushed her roughly against it, the breath leaving her in a gasp as he tightened his grip. Immediately she grabbed at his forearm for support, under the beskar feeling the chords of his muscles flex as he closed in on her. She could still breathe but it was strained, and she glared up at him when he chuckled under the helmet.

“Not many people can catch me off guard like that.”

“Sorry you’re getting sloppy,” she gritted out, then whimpered when he pushed against her harder, fixing her in place still. In the dark she couldn’t see what he was doing, but she could hear him shuffling with his free hand before the hiss of him removing his helmet sounded through the darkness. His hand around her throat, the press of his armour, and the dizzying feeling of having her life in his hands like this made everything feel a million times more intense.

“You distract me.” His unmodulated voice made Lis close her eyes despite the blackness. Mando’s voice without the helmet in the way was so...clear. So untainted and real. He let go of her neck and she was glad of the support of the door against her back to stop her stumbling. “I shouldn’t have underestimated you. I’m sorry.”

His lips faintly brushed against her open, gasping ones, sending an electric jolt up her spine. Lis realised he must have had to duck down slight to do it. The kiss was so gentle that if she hadn’t been hyper focused in the dark she would have sworn it had been her imagination. A barely-there brush that she didn’t even have time to respond to.

He did it again, this time firmer, but still closed mouthed. His facial hair scraped and tickled her skin, contrasting with the softness of his lips. For all intents and purposes it was an innocent kiss, but the groan that vibrated from his chest at the contact was positively indecent. Lis realised he had probably never done this before. She couldn't imagine how touch starved he was under the mask all the time. The thought made her press up, leaning her hands on his chestplate and kiss him back with every bit of gentleness she could manage. Beneath her fingertips his heart was hammering.

Mando’s arms wrapped around her sides, drawing her closer. Maker, he was hard already. She could feel it digging into her stomach as he tightened himself around her. Lis opened her mouth and he followed suit, slipping his tongue to brush against hers. It was wet and obscene, the way he explored her mouth, and she was content to let him do it. His still gloved hand came up to grip her jaw as he slid his tongue against hers, like a starving man finding a feast, savouring every flavour. If he ate pussy anything like he kissed Lis realised she was done for. 

“You don’t know what you do to me, Lissa,” he groaned against her lips, his grip on her jaw near bruising as he pulled back slightly, almost as if he stopped kissing her for a second she would get lost in the darkness. “Taking me down like it was nothing. Could be a Mandalorian.”

“Stars,” Lis whispered, wrapping one of her legs around his waist, hoping he would understand what she was hinting at. Thankfully he did, reaching to lift her underneath her thighs and backing himself to sit down on the small bunk in the room. Her knees rested either side of his thighs, kneeling on the rough blankets as Mando tore himself away from her lips again and ran his hands up the back of her legs to grip her ass. He kissed down her jaw, grazing his teeth along the bone. When he reached her neck she heard him inhale deeply, taking in the scent of her hair. He groaned, burying his face against the soft skin as he dug his fingers in almost painfully.

She tried to form a mental picture of his face from what she could feel alone. His nose was sharp as he ran it against the curve of her throat, and when she cupped his jawline she could feel it equally as sturdy as the rest of him. It wasn’t much, but it was more than enough in that moment. Her eyes closed despite the darkness.

Mando's jaw flexed under her fingers as he pressed open mouthed kisses to her neck, more licking than actually kissing. Lis realised he was tasting her.

The thought made her drop down from her kneeling, pressing closer into him until she could feel his hardness against her core. As if waiting on her cue, he immediately thrust his hips up to meet hers. She stifled a moan until she felt a sharp crack against her ass, then his gloved hand rubbing the area soothingly. The shock made her cry out, embarrassingly breathy, and Mando kissed her hard in response, nipping her bottom lip with his teeth.

“I want the whole galaxy to hear you, cyar'ika,” he breathed against her. “The whole fucking galaxy.”

For a moment he fumbled blindly behind her, and Lis realised he was tugging his gloves off. As he did so, she pulled her loose shirt over her head, feeling his warm hands come to rest on her ribcage, skin against skin. Fucking finally. Since that first time he had slipped them inside her, she hadn’t stopped thinking about their calloused tips grazing across her heated skin, sliding slowly into her as his other hand wrapped around her neck.

That was twice now that he’d done that, she realised. Grabbing her by the throat without the intention of actually hurting her. She tucked that information to the back of her brain, hopefully for later.

“Five hundred credits,” she mumbled against Mando’s mouth.

“What?” He drew back slightly, but Lis followed him, distracting him with another quick kiss. She pushed her tongue into his mouth, feeling his jaw go slack as she did so, and smirked when he let out another groan. The sound went straight to her core, but she steeled herself on the task at hand.

“That’s what I want. For chips at Canto Bight.” She felt him pause and Lis immediately regretted the words. She must have mistimed it, she should have waited until he was about to cum inside her or something equally distracting before asking him. Shit.

“How much do you think you’ll make back?” His voice was surprisingly thoughtful. Maybe he wasn’t considering throwing her out the airlock after all. She still had to play it careful though. Leaning down, she kissed a trail from his chin to the dip of his clavicle, taking her time to flick her tongue against his skin every so often. Mando swallowed, his hands circling her stomach and sides, and she felt the bob of his throat when he did so.

“Hmm,” she hummed, biting gently at his skin. Against her thigh, his dick twitched. “Triple it. At least. Four thousand if I’m optimistic.”

Mando carefully didn’t react, but four thousand credits was nothing to laugh at. Lis knew it was more than he made on five jobs, not to mention in a fraction of the time with much less danger.

He was quiet again, and she could almost hear the gears turning in his head. Wordlessly he ran a hand across her waist, unbuttoning her trousers with an excruciating pace. Pulling her up so she was braced on her knees again, he tugged them down to her mid thigh.

“How do you win?” She tried to sit back down on his lap, but he braced her in place, running his nose against her abdomen.

“That’s a trade secret,” Lis laughed, but it turned into a pathetic whimper when he ducked his head down to kiss the material of her underwear. “Oh.”

He didn’t even kiss the spot that really mattered, but after all the touches it was enough to send a wave of arousal through her. Lis slid her fingers into his surprisingly soft curls, feeling him graze his teeth against her hipbone as he pulled back up.

“So trade me for it.”

Was that a joke? She felt him grin against her skin at his own words. What a dork, it wasn’t even funny.

Abruptly he yanked her to him, tight against his chest, before spinning her to lie stretched out on the bed with his body still between her thighs. She didn’t really understand what he was doing until he started kissing down her stomach, pulling back to tug off her boots one by one followed by her trousers. She tried not to wince when he pressed his lips softly to the scar on her abdomen, before continuing south. Thankfully he didn’t stop to dwell on it.

“Oh I see,” Lis breathed, grinning when he pushed her thighs apart with a hand under each of her knees. “Mando, you should know I hold up very well under interrogation.”

“Din,” he mumbled, pressing an open mouthed kiss to the fabric of her microgarment, feeling it already soaking to the touch. Lis shakily inhaled, frowning through her distraction.

“What?”

Mando pulled her underwear off in one quick motion. She expected him to dive right in, but instead he leaned up over her, dragging his lips over her jaw to meet her mouth again and kiss her thoroughly. When he broke away she was breathless, and he moved to whisper in her ear. 

“I’m sure I can persuade you to talk.” As he spoke he slid two fingers down her stomach, breathing out a laugh when she jumped at the contact against her clit. “Wish I could see your face.”

“Now you know how it feels,” she teased through her haze, turning her head to nudge her nose against Mando’s. “Are you going to fuck me with your tounge or not?” She tried not to let her neediness show, but she had a feeling Mando already knew by the way he swirled his fingers, gathering some of her moisture on the pads of them before lightly stroking her clit again.

"You're so wet. I bet you could take my dick right now."

Lis bit her lip, his words making her whine. "Mando please, please just fuck me."

She heard his breath catch. "Can you uh..." he sounded almost nervous, like he had when he told her about getting the job on Cantonica.

"Can I what?"

"Can you maybe kinda ask me for it?" Uncertainty laced his words, as if he didn’t really fully know what he was wanting. 

"I thought I just did."

"No, I mean - nevermind," he dismissed it quickly and Lis immediately felt bad.

"You mean like beg you for it?"

"Y-yeah. If that's okay."

He didn't need to ask her, she probably would have done it anyway with the way he was paused against her clit, the contact there but missing the friction she was craving. "Please fuck me, Mando."

The way he groaned against her and ground against the side of her thigh told her she was doing something right.

"I want to feel you so badly," she slid a hand up his chest, letting a needy tone slip into her voice. “Please Mando, I can’t stop thinking about this. I need you.”

That final sentence seemed to really get him. Mando let out a grunt, kissing her messily, all teeth and tongue, before hauling himself back down to rest between her knees. He threw her legs over his shoulders and she felt his hot breath on her core.

“Say it again.” He wasn’t asking, he was telling. Lis grit her teeth, feeling him hover above her. The anticipation was killing her.

“I need you.” The moment the words passed her lips, he was on her. She was right in her earlier thoughts, that he would do this like he kissed. Lis couldn’t even say he ate her, he was fucking devouring her. There was a feral unrefindess that made her choke out a moan as he ran his tounge from the base of her slit to her clit, circling it messily. She didn’t know if it was a lack of experience or a lack of restraint, but either way she was seeing stars.

Still in the dark, she reached out a hand, blindly grasping at his hair to push his head closer into her. “Fuck, Mando!”

When his tongue delved into her and his nose brushed her clit she almost fully came then and there. She tried to squeeze her thighs together, but Mando’s broad shoulders blocked her. He roughly knocked them back apart, pulling back slightly. “Don’t make me hold you down.”

The mental image had her throwing her head back in pleasure, Mando plunging his fingers into her and continuing his gorging on her. Lis’ back arched, the only sound was the obscene wet noise of him pumping his fingers at a steady pace marred only by her broken moans. The feeling of him fucking her with his fingers and alternating between licking and swirling his tongue against her had her legs shaking, her release torturously close.

“Mando, shit, I’m going to cum,” the grip on his hair tightened, and she fisted the rough sheets with her free hand. When she began grinding her hips down into his face Mando moaned, curling his fingers inside of her to brush that  _ fucking perfect _ spot inside of her. 

“Stars, Mando!” Her release hit her like a charging bantha, her legs shaking. This time Mando let her grip her legs around him, maintaining his pace to work her through it.

When she finally came down from her high, slowly unhooking her legs from him, Mando continued lapping softly at her. Lis realised she still had a grip on his hair and used it to tug him up to kiss her, tasting her own juices coating his tongue as she did so. 

“Always such a good girl,” he breathed, slumping down beside her, the bed dipping with the weight. Lis realised he was no longer hard, the thought of him cumming in his pants from going down on her made her clench, almost readying herself to go again.

They both lay in the cot, letting their breathing return to normal. It was nice, feeling the warmth of another person. She hadn't really felt it since she had left Anderon, the galaxy could really be an isolating place at times. While sex was readily available, really truly being close to another person was a rare luxury that few wanted to splurge on. When she felt Mando shuffle, she worried he might be getting uncomfortable with their closeness. Yes, they had both got each other off with their mouths, but cuddling was a whole new kind of intimacy she didn’t think they were ready for.

That was how she justified tugging herself out from under the weight of his arm, sliding off the bed and reaching out blindly on the floor for her scattered clothing.

Mando didn’t say anything, he still just lay there, listening to the sound of her dressing.

“I count them.”

“What’s that?” Despite all they had done she still wasn’t used to the clarity of his unmodulated voice.

“The cards. When I play sabacc,” she tugged her trousers up her leg, the buckles jingling, “I know my cards, then I know the cards that have already been played, and when the sabacc shift happens I know what cards everyone else has. So I know exactly when to play my hand.”

Mando didn’t speak but she heard the noise of him sitting up, followed by the hiss of his helmet sliding over his head.

“Except when I play you,” she grinned, knowing he could now see her with the added vision of the helmet. She probably looked a state, flushed and sweaty, with her hair in disarray from thrashing against the bed. Hitting the dimly glowing button to slide the door open, she was granted enough light spilling into the room to see his figure, now safely concealed by his armour. “I just spy your cards in your shiny helmet.” 

Cheekily, she leaned forward, tapping her nails on his visor. Mando visibly bristled, then his shoulders shook. Lis realised after a second he was silently laughing. How many times had he done that, quiet under his helmet without anyone ever knowing? For some reason the thought made her ache, and not in the sexy way. The sad, lonely kinda way. 

“I’ll give you a thousand credits,” he finally said, his helmet looking her up and down. Lis turned on her heel, heading out the door, unsurprised that she had got what she wanted and then some.

“Hope you’re ready to be as rich as the Hutts,” she called behind her, not looking back. She could have sworn she heard him properly laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, happy new year! I'm back! 
> 
> I have no idea why this chapter took me so long, I had to rewrite it like four times until I was happy with it. I finally have it how I want it though!
> 
> Anyway I wanna pose a question to yall; Virgin!Mando or nah? Because I'm personally of the opinion that he Fucks, but only out of necessity. I imagine though he's never actually kissed anyone or (heh) used his mouth for anything else for that matter, so that's what I kinda went for in this chapter. I hope his kinda weird mix of confidence and nervousness translated well.
> 
> As usual Thank You to everyone who's read and left a review/kudos, I would go and re-read the comments when I wasn't feeling like writing to give me motivation and it really helped. I'd love to hear what yous thought of this chapter! Also sorry it's a bit long, it was a real trudge to get through on my end but I hope you're happy with the result!


	5. It's the Negotiations Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was originally part of the last chapter but I decided to split them up otherwise it would have been waaaay too long. Din's POV in this one hehe enjoy.

He couldn’t believe he’d just done that. 

All these years of upholding his creed so strictly, no matter what he had missed out on, he had found himself tossing it all away in a moment because of _her._

Well, not exactly. Din was still technically in the clear since Lis hadn’t actually seen him without his helmet on. He supposed this was still acceptable, if a somewhat hotly contested loophole within his Tribe. On Novarro he had been vaguely aware of Paz Vizsla doing something similar, swaggering back to the enclave with lewd stories involving blindfolds and Maker knows what else.

Din tried not to think about Lissa spread out underneath him, blindfolded and maybe even with her arms tied above her head, totally open and begging him to fuck her again. She would look so fucking perfect, and he could take his helmet off and kiss her like he had finally worked up the courage to do, slide into her and watch her mouth fall open in surprise and pleasure. Every noise and reaction would belong to him in that moment.

He dropped his chin to his chest with a sigh, his helmet suddenly feeling like it weighed a thousand tonnes. There was no way he could risk doing something like that again. Even under the cloak of darkness he wasn’t supposed to take his helmet off in front of any one unless they were- Din shook his head, stopping the thought in its tracks. No way would Lissa agree to marry him, they barely knew each other. It was stupid, but Din still couldn’t stop his mind wandering. They were already basically raising a foundling together, if they were both Mandalorian there wouldn’t even be a question about it. His fists tightly bunched up the scratchy blanket below him at the thought of her being his riduur, and he hers. It was as if taking his helmet off for her had opened the floodgates to every childish fantasy of romance and family he had.

Who was he kidding? He hadn’t taken it off for her, he had taken it off for purely selfish reasons. He was tired of waiting until he was sure she was busy, engrossed in fixing one of the many things that malfunctioned on the ship, to press the blanket she slept with to his bare face and breathe in the soft smell of her. Din had tried to commit it to memory, shamefully telling himself that this was the last time and that he was being an utter creep, but removing his helmet and being able to take in a lungful of the real thing told him his memory hadn’t done her justice. He didn’t know how he could go back to normal now, being so fully immersed in her with each of his senses made everything else feel dull and hollow in comparison.

Lissa was sweet, she was rude, she was beautiful. And fuck, he couldn’t believe she’d actually let him touch her, let alone do everything else he’d done. 

Din could hear her scuffling around outside the door, fumbling for the button to open it. He hadn't expected her to come back after she’d hurried away, but as the door slid open there she was, hair still mussed and skin glowing. Din consciously straightened his posture, falling back on the security his armour gave him to be able to be unreadable. If he didn’t have the layer of beskar she, and probably the rest of space, would have been able to see the smile that immediately broke his face at her reappearance. 

“Back for more?” He questioned, forcing himself to sound teasing and not the pathetically hopeful way he was actually feeling. He felt like a damn teenager again, reduced to a mess by the thought of a pretty girl. Even more like a teenager, the uncomfortable feeling of where he had cum in his pants was growing cold and sticky. Din winced when he shifted, trying not to make it obvious. 

Lissa rolled her eyes and she visibly tried not to laugh. _Ni kar'tayli gar darasuum,_ Din thought.

“Ha,” she said sarcastically, and he was only a little disappointed she didn’t say yes. He noticed she was fumbling with something in her fingers, nervously playing with it. 

“What is that?” He prompted, nodding to her hands.

Lis glanced down at it, playing with it for a moment before holding it out to him. “It’s what I was making. For you.”

Upon closer inspection, Din could see it was a piece of hardware for his vambrace, looking like it would slot in perfectly into the existing machinery. How had she got the specifications for it? He so rarely took his armour off around anyone long enough for measurements to be taken, let alone something as detailed and technical as this.

 _Until now,_ a voice in his head interjected.

Wordlessly he took it from her outstretched hand, but she held onto it when he tried to tug it away from her.

“What?”

She finally released it. “This isn’t, like, payment. For anything. It’s a gift.”

Din flushed under his helmet. The stuttered way she spoke gave away how nervous she was, despite the nonchalant way she was being.

“What does it do?”

As soon as he asked she eagerly settled herself opposite him on the bed, grabbing the piece back from him again. “It’s really smart,” her words were hurried, excitable. “It emits a cloaking frequency that uh- you know droids, they have actuators and sensors to interact with their surroundings. So actually, those sensors are made up of, uh like-”

“Hey, hey,” he said gently, resting a hand on her forearm to calm her from her words tripping over themselves. Lis stilled instantly at the contact, laughing as she blushed. “Slow down.”

“Sorry,” she bit her lip. Din couldn’t stop wanting to kiss her. Again. “It stops droids being able to see you, basically.”

How the fuck was he supposed to put into words the way that made him feel? The way _she_ made him feel. He had never thought that the warm tightness in his chest would be caused by a random mechanic that had talked herself into his life.

“I-I might try it out first, in Canto Bight,” she continued talking, nervous again. He realised he hadn’t said anything, too caught up in the endless loop of _I think I love you I think I love you_ running though his mind. “Just to check it’s working, if that’s alright?”

Din still couldn’t bring himself to make a sound, not trusting his voice. Instead he just nodded.

He hated the shy, uncertain look she had when she glanced up at him through her lashes. “Was this a stupid thing to build? It might not even work properly. I knew I should have made it-”

“No!” He quickly forced out, louder than he had intended. “No, it’s good, it’s...thank you.”

Stars, could he sound any more like a bumbling fool if he tried?

“Okay,” Lis smiled, clutching the addition to her chest like it was something precious. It was. To him it was. “It should slot right in just above where your whistling birds go.”

Ever so gently she ran her fingers over the space in the vambrace, lifting his arm with her light touch. He hoped she couldn’t feel him shaking. Despite all they had done, he still wasn’t used to her soft and careful contact. Even just touching the cold beskar was mesmerizing. Did she know how revered she would be as a Mandalorian? Not just being able to forge metal, but being able to create things from seemingly nothing. Din had watched her fiddle with this for weeks now, adjusting and working until it was perfect to her. What could she do with real resources, not just errant scrap from around his ancient ship? With pure beskar to manipulate and work with? 

“Mando?”

He snapped his attention back to her, realising she had asked him a question. There he was, fucking blushing like a teenager again.

“Huh?”

“I asked if you were sure about Canto Bight.”

“If we’ll be on Cantonica anyway there’s no harm in staying one night.”

She hummed. Din couldn’t tell why she was suddenly so nervous, it was such a jarring contrast to her usual discomposed ease. Surely it wasn’t because of him. Maybe he had made her nervous with how weird he was being. That must have been it. He was freaking her out, like he always did. He was always either too imposing and aggressive or shying away too much and making her feel like he hated her.

His fingers twitched, grazing the inside of her arm. Din tried to replicate her feather-like touch, but he seemed to have the elegance of a bantha by comparison. Being soft with people wasn’t something he was very used to. At least until he had taken in the child, the only touches he had initiated had been rough and violent. The closest thing he had had to a relationship was Xi’an, and it would have been laughable to suggest that they had been anything except relief from boredom and pent up aggression to each other. If he was ever going to feel this way about anyone, he always assumed it would be another Mandalorian. They would bond over fighting and a shared creed, in combat together that would spark a mutual respect that would lead to a relationship. Lis had been the complete opposite. She had snuck up on him, and before he knew it he was taking his helmet off and risking everything for just the chance to press his lips against hers. Kriff, did he even have a thousand credits to give her?

“If I saw you without your helmet on would you really kill me?”

Her question surprised him. She didn’t sound frightened, just genuinely curious, her nervousness dissipating as she tucked the piece of equipment safely into her pocket. Where her hands had rested now felt cold.

“Yes,” he answered, not quite knowing if it was true or not. 

“What if it was an accident?”

“Maybe.” Din frowned even though she couldn’t see him. “I don’t know.” That was the truth. He could fill multiple holo disks with what he didn’t know these days. They were still no closer to finding the kid’s home planet, or anything that was any semblance of a lead in the right direction. Not to mention Lis had been on his ship for how fucking long without him even thinking to ask about her past. Maybe he wasn't stupid, just ignorant.

Din looked back at her just as a small smile quirked her lips. He knew that look, she had some thought brewing in her mind that was about to spill out and get her in trouble. She pushed forward, dramatically leaning her full body weight against his shoulder.

“What if I said _please_ , Mando?” She batted her eyelashes, putting on a mockingly breathy voice. Roughly he shoved her off and she landed heavily with an ‘oof’ on her side on the bed, cackling.

Din moved to stand up, her deliberate attempts at riling him up succeeding into earning her the silent treatment for a couple of hours at least, but Lis darted up surprisingly quickly. She caught him around his waist from behind. He probably could have stood up if he’d wanted to, dragging her with him with relative ease, but instead he stilled, letting her pull him back at a slight tilt. This was...new.

Lis rested her chin on his shoulder and he pointedly didn’t look at her, even when she moved her arms to wrap around his sides. It was a backwards hug, awkward and uncomfortable to say the least, but all that was forgotten as she pressed a kiss to the side of his helmet and spoke the words that he had been dreaming about her saying for weeks.

“What if I said ‘Please Din?’” she said quietly. His heart leaped into his throat.

“What?”

“That’s your name, isn’t it?” she chuckled. “You think I don’t listen but I do. I know that's what you really want to hear.”

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Maker, he was done for. His name had never sounded so sweet to his own ears until now.

“Cyar'ika,” he sighed, finally turning his head to face her. Lightly, his forehead knocked against hers in a twisted Keldabe kiss.

“You said before that if we started this I should be sure. And I am sure. I’ve never been surer about anything before.” He felt her shuffle nervously behind him, shifting her weight from side to side. “And now I’m asking you. Are you sure?”

Din didn’t even know if he understood what she was asking. He had been scared of going too far, of hurting her, when he had asked that. 

“Are you sure you want me?”

“Yes.” He answered immediately, hating how small and uncertain she sounded. He twisted his body on the cot, her arms dropping from around him. Din reached up, cupping her jaw with both hands and trying to reassure her as best he could. “In-in every way.”

Lis nodded, biting her lip. 

“Okay. Good,” she whispered, then cleared her throat, a grin on her face again. “Good.”

Before he could stop himself, Din ran his thumb across the small indent on her cheek that appeared whenever she smiled. Lis pressed her palms into the back of his hands, tugging them down and Din froze, assuming had made a wrong move somewhere.

"Can I, uh," Lissa cupped his hands between hers, warm and soft like her embrace. "Can I put the lights out again?"

"Please," he breathed, feeling like a huge weight had been lifted off his chest. Lis dropped his hands, shuffling down to the edge of the cot to reach over and turn the lights off.

The second the room flickered into darkness he was pulling his helmet off. Fuck what he had promised himself earlier. What once had given him feelings of security now felt suffocating, and he only had himself to blame for the newfound shift.

Lissa's hands found him clumsily in the dark. He no longer had the buzz of adrenaline in his veins from their tussle like the first time, but he felt his blood thrum with a new kind of energy. Her fingers met his jaw like his own hands had done moments ago and she pressed her lips to his, slightly off centre. Din didn't mind. He could have kissed her a hundred times a day for all eternity and it still wouldn't be enough to satisfy him. This time he was more restrained, less overwhelmed by the urge to have her consume all his senses at once, but the warmth in his stomach was creeping back and he found himself clinging to her like a lifeline. 

Lissa kissed him over and over, her soft pecks growing frenzied and harder as she seemed to get lost in him. Din was barely aware enough to do more than let himself be kissed, dizzy from the rapid sensations.

He felt her straddle his lap, arching into him. Her lips were so soft, so fucking perfect. Before now, running the pads of his fingers against them had been as close as could get, but now that he had taken the helmet off things were-

Kriff, his dick was in her hand. 

He hadn't even noticed her unzipping him and pulling it out, it was like she had put him in a trance. He was so unaware of his surroundings, so focused on the feeling of her tongue slipping into his mouth, that the whole Empire could have charged through the doors and he wouldn't have noticed.

A part of him knew that this should worry him more than it did. Lissa had taken him and stripped down his defences, leaving him raw and vulnerable.

He wrapped his arm around her waist, drawing her down as she stroked him. Din let out a choked moan against her mouth and she pulled back slightly, grinning against him. 

"Din," she breathed, pressing another kiss to his parted, gasping lips.

"Say it again," he pleaded. 

"Din," she repeated.

"Again." His voice was demanding, desperate and wrecked.

She gently nipped his bottom lip with her teeth, drawing out what he really wanted.

"Din," Lis mumbled, squeezing his dick as she pumped it. "I need you so badly."

It felt like this time she was the composed one. Despite her words, she wasn't pleading or begging, rather just stating a fact. Din tilted his head, kissing his way down her neck until a particularly expertly sharp tug of her hand made him bite down with a groan. The noise she let out at the contact was worth more than a thousand credits.

He was still gripping the material of her shirt, and forced his hands to relax, running them down to tug at the waistline of her trousers. Lis pulled back to stand, and for a moment Din was terrified he had pushed her too far or somehow misread the signals she was sending him, before she was back in his lap and nudging her nose with his to resume kissing him deeply. He didn’t realise she was completely bare until the tip of his dick grazed her dripping folds. He didn’t know how he could go back now. He was so screwed.

Her hand wrapped around his length again but before she could guide him into her he stopped her. It was one of the hardest moments of self control he’d ever faced, having everything he wanted in that second so close and hold himself back. “Wait.”

“What?” Dank farrik, she sounded pissed. He could feel her thigh muscles straining with hovering over him and he clenched his jaw.

“I-I want to do this properly.” Din felt her relax back down, letting out a small sigh.

“Of course,” she said, ”Sorry if I’m going too fast, I just thought-”

Fuck, she was so considerate of him and his feelings. Why couldn’t he extend the same courtesy to her when he needed to? He kissed her in what he hoped was a comforting way, but he couldn't quite tell if the message got through. He still wasn't really used to it, feeling like he was running on instinct rather than any semblance of actual technique. 

“It’s not that,” Din reassured, maneuvering her to sit beside him on the bed. “It’s just the armour, it’s a little, uh, heavy.” 

“Oh,” she breathed, “Okay.”

They didn't speak as he slowly removed the many layers, movements automatic after years of practice. Din was used to silence, he preferred to say nothing and let the beskar do the talking when he was interacting with people. Lis had stripped that all away, both metaphorically and literally. Here he was, removing everything that made him a Mandalorian, and finding it so hard to care as he did so. He knew her not being able to see him was a cheap loophole. He could feel it, the weight of his Creed resting heavy and invisible on his shoulders. But for her it was okay, Din told himself. Lissa was different. She was the one exception.

When he was done peeling back the layers, fully stripped down, he drew her back into his lap, still perched on the edge of the bed. Somewhere along the way she had also taken her shirt off, leaving them both bare against each other.

The press of her skin against his was like a hundred galaxies colliding. The only thing he could think was that she was warm, but her hands were cold. They smoothed across his shoulders, trailing down his arms to meet his hands.

From the angle in his lap her breath fanned his face, and even in the dark his eyes slid shut. Grazing his lips on her neck, he held her steady with one of his hands at her lower back, the other slipping between her legs to press against where she was dripping.

“Do you want this?” He asked, spreading her wetness around. 

She took a shaky breath above him, the sound quiet and muted in space between them. “Yes.”

As much as he wanted to hear her beg and plead with him like she had done earlier, this somehow felt different. It was softer. He didn’t want to ruin it with any kind of roughness, even when she told him it was okay.

Din slid two fingers into her, pressing his forehead against hers as he did so.

“Din,” Lis gasped. He had barely started moving them when she curled her fingers around his wrist, gently pulling him away. He was trying to be slow, not rushing anything, but Lis seemed to have other ideas. 

Even in the dark, he saw blinding white when she finally sank down onto him. Din let out a groan at the wet heat. The feeling of it against his fingers and tongue was nothing compared to the intensity he was currently experiencing. He gave a tentative thrust upwards and the moan she made could have turned him feral right then and there if he wasn’t so focused on being as gentle as he could physically manage.

“You’re so perfect,” he felt the words spill out his mouth before he could stop them, “B-been thinking about this for months.”

He braced one hand against the flat of the bed, and kept the other holding her steady, beginning to thrust into her rhymically, a slow pace that matched each breath she took.

“And how does it compare?” Lis sounded wrecked, but not nearly as much as he would like. She kissed him again

“I-” He swallowed heavily. “I don’t have the words.”

“Then show me,” she whispered.

Din softly kissed her jaw, his thoughts caught only in the moment. Everything dropped away, the only real tangible thing in the darkness of this void was the closeness, and finally he felt whole again. As if a part of him had been missing and now they had reconnected. Yes, he had fucked before, but this was something brand new. He didn’t have that frenzied, clawing feeling inside that usually accompanied sex, one that spurred him to be as quick and efficient as possible so he could go back to focusing on whatever else he had to deal with that day. Instead he had a warmth inside him, like the glowing gold of sunlight on skin, a feeling he could barely remember since he was a boy. Din was consumed, intoxicated. He barely noticed when she sank her teeth into the skin of his shoulder, letting out a throaty moan as she did so.

It was realer than she had sounded before, rougher round the edges. Din realised with a start that her noises prior had been perfect and practiced, far too well rehearsed. He knew it was probably out of habit at this point, that it didn’t make her reactions any less genuine, but he still got some strange satisfaction in knowing he was making her feel so good she was losing even her subconscious composure.

With every movement of his hips, burying himself inside her to the hilt, he gripped her thigh harder. She took him so well, so perfectly, that he could almost imagine she was created just for him. He could feel his release curling up inside him, tightening his insides, and as much as he wanted her to cum before he did, he wasn’t sure if he had the capacity in that moment to do anything about it.

Din didn’t need to worry though, Lis’ grip on his shoulders tightened and she began to ride him, knees either side of his thighs, with a growingly frantic pace. 

“Yes,” he found himself saying, “L-like that, just use me, fuck.”

“Din!” she cried, clenching around him impossibly tighter. Her saying his name combined with her own orgasm was enough to send him over the edge he had been teetering on. 

Din curled into her, biting down hard on her collarbone as he came, painting her insides with heavy shuddering breaths. “Fuck.”

He stayed inside her as long as possible, not wanting to untangle himself from her warmth before he had to. Lissa was the first to draw back, still panting slightly as she raised herself onto her knees again. Something warm and wet dripped onto his thigh and an instant flash of panic ripped though him.

“Shit, I- inside you,” he hurried out. While it was a nice fantasy, one kid was enough to deal with at the moment, and conceiving any kind of child required at least a discussion beforehand. Lis didn’t let his spiralling thoughts get far though. She kissed him, gentle and comforting as ever, and he involuntarily relaxed.

“Relax,” she cooed, running her fingertips over his thigh, gathering the moisture that had dripped there. He could feel her smile against him. “That’s not something we need to worry about.”

Lissa pressed her two fingers past his lips and into his mouth, much like he had done to her before. He instinctively sucked, the taste of the two of them combined filling his senses and he heard Lis inhale sharply. 

When she drew her hand back he mouthed the words that had taken root in his mind, knowing she couldn’t see him.

_I love you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is some TENDERNESS yall. As always lmk what you think! I tried to write soft yet sexy and I hope it translated, and I'm curious if the little breadcrumbs I'm dropping will make sense in the upcoming chapters.
> 
> Anyway hope yall enjoyed and thank you for being so patient while I worked on this one, I'm aiming to write 1-2 chapters per month but we'll see how things go with my schedule.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think! Thoughts  
> and criticism appreciated!


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